Rappler Talk: Ping Lacson and the rule of law

MANILA, Philippines – Rappler talks to Philippine Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson.

Lacson’s has seen both sides of the law in his career – first as chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP) and then as a fugitive escaping what he calls “injustice” after being implicated in the killing of 11 Kuratong-Baleleng gang members in 1995.

He shares his views on the rule of law as the PNP faces it’s biggest scandal during it’s war on drugs, with allegations of “tokhang for ransom” that resulted in the death of South Korean businessman Jee Ick Joo.

Watch Lacson’s interview with Maria Ressa on Rappler.

 TRANSCRIPT

MARIA RESSA: Hello and welcome I’m Maria Ressa, this is Rappler Talk. Sitting with us today is Senator Ping Lacson, he was once chief of the Philippine National Police. He also was a fugitive at one time. He’s seen this play out, the rule of law on both sides of the fence. Senator Lacson, thank you for joining us.

SENATOR PANFILO LACSON: Good morning Maria and thank you for guesting me on Rappler.

RESSA: Thank you. He is also on twitter, the twitter account is… Your twitter account is?

LACSON: @iampinglacson

RESSA: @iampinglacson, so throw us any questions you have. #RapplerTalk. Senator Lacson, yesterday Amnesty International released a report that talked about the ‘economics of killing’, the ‘economics of death’, and estimated—this is according to a source in the police for them—that the police are rewarded for up to P15k for every person they killed. And that if they arrested them, they would get nothing. So there was incentive to kill. How did you react to that report?

LACSON: Well, I have yet to read the 66-page report, no? What we know as of now is what we read in the news. And I think it’s incumbent upon Amnesty International because these are very serious accusations or allegations, so it’s incumbent upon them. The onus is on them to back their allegation with hard evidence. If not, then as a Filipino, I’ll have to stand up for my own country, for the Philippine National Police, and for our government. But if they will come up with hard evidence then also it’s incumbent upon us to join the condemnation. And as a lawmaker, we should do something to address those accusations.

RESSA: As the former chief of the Philippine National Police, could something like this have happened?

LACSON: I cannot believe that. In the first place, where will the funds come from? Definitely it could not have come from the GAA, the General Appropriations Act. Because there’s no way those funds or the spending could be justified under the national budget.

RESSA: And yet from July 1 until January, end of January… You’re talking about more than 7,000 people killed in this by the Philippine National Police, right? That is an alarming number, why are people not more alarmed?

LACSON: That’s a good point. Because Amnesty International I think, I heard, that they are referring to the 7,000 deaths as attributed to the police themselves. That’s not quite true because we were shown statistics by the police, and it’s 1/3 and 2/3; 1/3 were killed in so-called legitimate police operations, quote-unquote, and the remaining 2/3 were perpetrated by so-called vigilantes. So it is not quite correct or accurate to attribute all 7,000 killings to the police.

RESSA: I agree with that but in the end I think part of it is because responsibility for law and order rolls up to the police. So even the vigilante killings, as you know, is still responsibility of the police.

LACSON: It is their responsibility, yes. But they referred to all the 7,000 killings as extra-judicial killings. The universal definition of extra-judicial killings, as far as I know, are killings perpetrated by government authorities.

RESSA: Correct, state-sponsored.

LACSON: State-sponsored. So to accuse the police of perpetrating all of 7,000 killings, which is not the case, I think that tells a lot about the Amnesty International report.

RESSA: But you’re still talking about a sizeable number, 1/3 of that is still sizeable, right? And that is within the police. So I guess the question then, when we look at that context to what the police has admitted doing, what Bato himself had said. With 7,000 people killed whether police or vigilante, is there a breakdown of law and order?

LACSON: Well, yes and no. The president himself has been very passionate. And it’s a good thing there’s a wakeup call brought about by the killing of this Korean national. And the president instructed the Philippine National Police to get off the illegal drugs operations. So I think that’s a good development because now, the PNP leadership can address the scallawags in their ranks.

RESSA: So there is an admission there are scallawags in the police

LACSON: That’s a given. Even during my time. I still remember in 2 months I was able to impose punishment on something like 2,000 police officers. Dismissal, suspension, reprimand, admonition; all sorts of punishment. Admittedly there are scallawags in the ranks.

RESSA: Could they have been given more power when President Duterte essentially said that if they’re shot in the line of duty, it’s okay? Could they have been empowered more?

LACSON: Well not empower but encouragement. Those pronouncements I think, were ill-advised. Because the president was even, you know… What do you call this…

RESSA: A carte blanche, waving a red flag.

LACSON: Waving a carte blanche authority. And he was even assuring the police officers concerned that he was ready to pardon them. Pro forma pardon forms that he was ready to sign. He even went to that extent. That would embolden the police to just do their thing without thinking of any accountability. 

RESSA: When you were Chief of Police, how did you keep the balance between letting your men know you were behind them and yet making sure that they would know if they did something wrong you would go after that?

LACSON: Well, immediately I started internal cleansing, I addressed the internal discipline of the police. I remember even in my assumption speech one of my pronouncements was to return all recovered carnapped motor vehicles, without question. They could return it incognito or official or formally and I would not investigate them. But after the 2-week period I would do something, which I did. After 2 weeks we were practically just getting vehicles under the flyovers near Camp Crame. And we accounted for 650 motor vehicles. And then I started my anti-kotong, the anti-mulcting operations. It was very effective because they knew that I was serious and we were really taking action against those people.

RESSA: I do wanna go back to this cause of course that also was—you’ve lived through so much. But I wanna go back to the present day which is about Oplan TokHang and then in terms of your own actions to it. You tweeted something interesting, you talked about how the war on drugs is essentially suspended for now, right? The President suspended it. And that night, there were no killings. And you tweeted something interesting you said this was a coincidence.

LACSON: It’s a commendable coincidence.

RESSA: Yeah, and what do you mean by that? A commendable coincidence. Are you being tongue-in-cheek? Are you being serious?

LACSON: Well, it was a double-edged statement, actually, you know? Because I was sort of teasing the police. How come when General dela Rosa gave instructions that we’re off the anti-illegal drugs operations, all of a sudden, even the vigilantes seemed to have listened to him. But at the same time we’re happy that no deaths were reported initially. But I heard 4 deaths were reported overnight.

RESSA: On social media also people reacted that it took a South Korean’s death to stop the killings. What about the thousands of Filipinos who died? How do you respond to something like that?

LACSON: The South Korean national’s death was not an isolated case and I showed it even during the committee hearing. I showed video footage of, you know, policemen planting evidence and even robbing their victims. And (they) even reported some information from Ms. Teresita Ang-See, the anti-kidnap crusader. And I think 12, at least 12 victims reported to her similar operations against them, TokHang for ransom.

RESSA: What made you decide to stop the hearings?

LACSON: No because the president took positive action. But I’m not stopping. We just suspended the hearings to just pause for a while, step back and find out how the latest president’s instruction plays out.

RESSA: So please correct me if I’m wrong with these numbers, at one point we found that the numbers reported by the police seem to show the death toll per night as high as 44 people killed a night, it went down to 38 people killed a night; then around December it was around 8 a night, then it to went 5 a night; so it was declining but it was still a lot. In terms of accountability, what do you see happening next? Will the people who killed the 7,000 people be held liable?

LACSON: Well, the police must seriously address this problem because I even reminded General dela Rosa and the other police officers who went with him when they visited me in my office, you should show you are solving these DUIs, death under investigation. Otherwise, it will be perceived rightly or wrongly, that you are behind these killings. And according to them, their crime solution rate was something like 21% and I told them it was very low. We are here talking of at the time 4,000 DUIs. And when you talk of 20%, that’s really… That reflects inefficiency of law enforcement. 

RESSA: Did he work for you? Did (PNP Chief Ronaldo) dela Rosa work for you?

LACSON: Ah, yeah. He was my Task Group commander in Mindanao. Because I had 3 task groups there, under the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force. And I’ve already mentioned this, I was surprised he’s a very much different dela Rosa now than during those days because he was then Chief Inspector. Whenever I would give him a mission, a task, he would just quietly deliver the results and he was very different at the time, I mean the demeanor is very different.

RESSA: What do you think of the revival of the Philippine Constabulary?

LACSON:  I wouldn’t agree with that simply because the Constitution mandates that we should have one police force that is national in scope and civilian in character. If we revive the Philippine Constabulary, there’ll be a big problem on jurisdiction, they’d be overlapping. Because at the time the police was still localized, no problem with the question of jurisdiction with the Philippine Constabulary because the Philippine Constabulary is not nationwide or national in scope. But now, since we already have the national police, unless the president envisions to have a Philippine Constabulary in the mold of a National Guard, that can only come in when there is widespread violence or calamity, but that could be a big drain on the budget and we cannot afford that. 

RESSA: President Duterte even when he was still mayor, when he was campaigning, had said that he would defend the police because they’re in the frontline and he said this often right? ‘Nanlaban’. Since then, we talked earlier that could encourage the bad guys in the police and we know that there are bad guys, ‘nanlaban’ now is a common refrain. How did you see that? And how do we break that down again for accountability?

LACSON: Well I think the president neglected to remind the police that they should operate within the rule of law. They were so emboldened because of the pronouncements that as you said, carte blanche. They were given their own free will to do practically anything. He even promised to protect them.

RESSA: And if you believe Amnesty International they were paid for the deaths.

LACSON: I have yet to see hard evidence, proof to show. They mentioned a police officer as one of their witnesses. I want to see the statement and some evidence presented by the police officer that they mentioned. Because they did not even mention the name. So how can we find out if they really talked to a police officer?

RESSA: In terms of rule of law, you mentioned rule of law. Over the years ‘Rule of law,’ that definition keeps changing; how do you define rule of law today in the Philippines?

LACSON: Well within the criminal justice system, you can only kill a person, the only justification for killing a person is in self-defense. There’s no other justification or legal justification. When the police goes beyond the parameters of self-defense, that’s not within the rule of law.

RESSA: Let’s go back to your history. You talked about what you have done as chief of police. One of the accusations you mentioned then was the Kuratong Baleleng that you yourself took a strong hand against criminals. Where did you draw the line when you were there? And again it’s funny how much the tide has turned, right? Now we’ve had in six or seven months, thousands of people killed.

LACSON: Let’s put it this way. Self-defense the way we see it in the movies is very much different in real life. When we are chasing a group of bandits, armed robbers, and we shout at them to raise their arms in surrender, and instead of seeing raised arms you see barrels of guns, what would you do? You still wait for them to shoot at you, and then you roll like a movie hero, a movie actor and shoot back? That won’t happen in real life. When you see imminent danger, and you have the opportunity to protect yourself, defend yourself or even your companions, I would tell my men, ‘Shoot, stupid!’ It’s better to be a living villain if I may say so, than a dead dog. Because when you’re there inside a coffin you imagine your comrades talking about you, “Why did you not shoot first?”

RESSA: Now in this context today you’ve actually been critical of some of the moves. You’ve pointed out that some killings may have been done with impunity. How bad is it in your mind?

LACSON: Well, right now I think it’s worse than the former PNP that I knew. Because right now they’re so encouraged in a wrong way by the president’s pronouncements. I think it’s not too late to correct that. And I think the president has realized, judging from his recent actions taken after the Korean national’s death, I think there will be a lot of restructuring and new instructions to be dished out to the police. 

RESSA: And again you’ve been here for a very long time but why was it okay with the Filipino public?

LACSON: Because they’re tired of injustice, they’re tired of, you know, our criminal justice system. The wheels of justice grind so slowly and they are fed up. So I think that’s the reason why the president’s still rating very high, after 6-7 months he’s still up there. So why, in spite of the reported summary executions and all these nasty incidents of killings, but he’s still up there.

RESSA: From martial law days after Marcos, it took a decade to reinstill discipline within the PNP; the constabulary was abolished. And that decade, you were part of that decade, putting in that discipline. Now that Pandora’s Box has been opened, and that encouragement, that carte blanche is there, what impact do you think this will have on the police?

LACSON: It’s about time to look back and review all the incidents for the past 7 months. And I think they are doing that right now. In fact, that’s the reason why the president disbanded all anti-illegal drugs units, to give the police the opportunities to reform themselves first, and then give them instructions again to engage in anti-illegal drugs operations. I think that’s a good move, that’s the reason why I suspended the hearings, because I wanted to wait and see.

RESSA: And encourage that move right? I mean in a way that’s…

LACSON: Yes that’s encouraging, actually.

RESSA: In terms of these killings, how clean can the police ever be? You were there when you were trying to clean it up. So now the police will investigate itself in these 7,000 killings. But how difficult will this be? What should be the next steps?

LACSON: A lot has to do with leadership. I have always maintained leadership by example is second to none. There’s no substitute to it. Because policemen normally follow their leader, even in terms of corruption, committing shenanigans. If they see their commander is too lax to enforce discipline on them, then they will just take it easy and abuse their authority. But if they know the commander is strict and leading the troops by example, then they will follow.

RESSA: You mentioned dela Rosa has changed from time he was under your command to now? How changed now?

LACSON: All of a sudden, he became kenkoy. At the time he was very serious, he was humble. But I can still vouch for his integrity. I knew him back then. He was an honest policeman and he was very diligent. He was hardworking and he did things very quietly, not so much fanfare. That’s why I was surprised to see him watching concerts. I told him if I were Chief PNP and I would be in Las Vegas and then some crisis is happening here, I would have gotten off my seat and take the first available flight back.

RESSA: So if you were Chief of PNP again, how would you clean up the PNP now?

LACSON: In same manner that I did it in 1999-2000. In 3 months I was able to reform the police. I believe, of course I’m subjective. But you know, people would tell me even now that gone were the days when the policemen were disciplined. I even imposed physical fitness, the discipline of being spick and span. I remember that. 

RESSA: And you think that this… What impact in the long term do you think this period of time, this 7 months now will have? How long will it take to recover?

 LACSON: I am confident dela Rosa will be able to deliver this time after the president just told him to “Hey, halt and think a while. You proceed when you have reformed yourselves.”

RESSA: War on drugs, in the last administration it was on number eight concern when you look at the surveys and then it became the number one, during the campaign it became the number one issue. Did the last administration neglect it? If you look at the PDEA results.

LACSON: I think perception has a lot to do with ranking drugs among the priorities. Because right now we never realized that it is this bad.

RESSA: Right. Is it that bad? It is.

LACSON: It is even before, even during previous administration, they were already estimating 4 million, 5 million. And almost all barangays are classified as drug-influenced or drug-affected.

RESSA: But the numbers vary. I guess we can talk about the actual number in terms of… Uhm, moving forward now what do you want to see happen, the best case and worst case scenario?

LACSON: The best-case scenario is for the police to be reformed in the truest sense of the word. Not just palliatives being applied. I would like to see a sustained disciplinary mechanism and disciplinary action on the part of the PNP leadership and even on the part of the Commander in Chief. I’d like to see a police force that is trusted, that is respected, not just feared. But yeah, I’d like to see a PNP that is really comparable to the best police organizations in the whole world.

RESSA: Politics, in terms of politics now. Again, what we’ve seen is supermajority in both in Congress, the Senate.

LACSON: That’s the culture of politics in the Philippines. Whenever a new administration comes in, all of a sudden, everybody wants to join the party. I’m independent by the way, I never joined a political party since 2003 because I think it’s just a temporary alliance and that’s what’s happening now. It’s better to be independent, you can do your thing, you are not bound by all the controls, all the rules imposed by your party.

RESSA: Are people afraid to speak out?

LACSON:  Now?

RESSA: Yes.

LACSON: Yes and no. Because you know, we have a president who is a very good and nasty counter-puncher. That contributes a lot to why people don’t want to take a punch at the president. It’s very much similar to Donald Trump, by the way. They are nasty and ruthless counter-punchers. That could be good, that could be bad. But I think the president has learned to adjust little by little. And I’d like to see him as a multi-dimensional president instead of a single issue; it’s always drugs, drugs, drugs. Now he’s shifting to anti-corruption but that’s an even more important thing to address.

RESSA: Yes, we support that completely. Sir my last question is, I’m personally curious. Again I said I started by saying you started on both sides of the law. When you decided to be a fugitive, and that time looking back on it, why did you decide to do that and what did you learn from it?

LACSON: First I learned to know who my real friends are. That’s a given. When you’re down there that’s the time you realize who are the true friends, who are not the real ones. I went into hiding because we were pleading to inhibit the judge. Because I knew that she was an applicant for promotion and the one who would sign her promotion papers was the one running after me, for 9 years. And thinking that my goose was cooked, definitely, and I knew I was not in any way involved in the accusations, so I decided. But before I did that, I asked my lawyer, is it okay for a respondent to be scarce, to be not physically present and the case would still move on? And, he told me yes. Are you sure? I asked him that. It’s going to be a dead end if it was not the case. Because the case would not prosper, would not move. He told me he was very sure because that was his case. There was a new jurisprudence, I think it was a 2-week-old Supreme Court ruling where he was the lawyer so he was very sure. That’s when I decided, why would I go to jail? I would not allow myself to be seen by former President Arroyo behind bars even for a minute for something I did not do. And I was proven right because Mancao himself, he was described as unreliable if not incredible witness. He even confided to me before he was promised with so many things by the past administration, GMA sent Gen. (Romeo) Prestoza who used to be PSG commander; Oscar Calderon, Chief PNP who used to be the superior of Mancao, promising him promotion to Chief Superintendent or Police General, reinstatement, and the family would be resettled in Singapore. He even told me that and he was asking my permission that he would do it only for a temporary arrangement and afterward he would retract. I told him would you believe those things would be delivered? After that he even called me up again, he said, “You’re correct sir, I consulted with my wife,” because I know his wife because he served under me. And he told me, “Yes your advice is correct sir, I will not enter into this agreement.” That’s why I was surprised that all of a sudden he executed an affidavit. So why would I allow myself to be behind bars? So I just decided to be scarce but the case still moved and fortunately I won the case.

RESSA: So it goes back to this thing that power corrupts…

LACSON: And corrupts absolutely.

RESSA: And corrupts absolutely. And the justice system is flawed, exactly the same thing. Has it improved?

LACSON: I don’t think so. We still have the same problems with our criminal justice system. That’s the reason why going back to your previous question, people still clap their hands when they see killings of supposed to be drug dealers. But it’s an ugly scene to see people in slippers. We have yet to see high-profile drug lords and dealers being countered by police officers. Of course there are a few, but even their killings put a big question mark on police operations like Mayor Espinosa, Jaguar or the drug lord from Cebu. They were killed under questionable circumstances.

RESSA: We’ll look forward to those investigations. Senator Lacson, thank you.

LACSON: Thank you very much.

RESSA: Thank you so much.

LACSON: We’ve been speaking with Senator Lacson on the extrajudicial killings on the killings that are on record Amnesty International reported. I’m Maria Ressa. Thank you for joining us.

– Rappler.com